This week was our Area Humanitarian Council meeting where we reviewed 13 proposed projects with the people on the council. Mom explains each of them in detail and answers any questions that are raised. I reviewed 3 incremental funding requests and a new project. All 13 of the projects were approved. We got back to the missionary couples and let them know of the approvals and any additions or modifications the council recommended. We had clean water projects, vision, and mother and child care projects. We saw projects to aid the disabled, refugees, and orphans. There were also gardening and food preservation projects, addiction recovery project, and caring for the elderly poor. In addition there were member welfare projects to help families start small chicken and pig farms. A lot of good work goes on to bless the lives of the poor in every corner of the world. The Humanitarian fund of the Church goes a long way to let people feel and see the love of Jesus Christ. Many times that love brings them new hope to continue on in their lives and succeed in ways they never dreamed possible.
The year-end brings us to the next step on our project work. Missionaries have submitted additional projects in case there are any welfare funds remaining. There was some money left in the budget, but not enough for all of the additional projects, so we needed to do some more work. Looks like we will be able to work things out for most of the additional projects and the remaining projects will be reviewed next year when the new budget funding for 2018 is available.
It really made me feel good that I was able to recover some significant funding that was remaining in open projects that made it possible to do several of the additional projects that were submitted. I was also able to clear several legal contracts and start a few new contracts. Mom worked with others to develop a new newsletter template that looks cleaner and easier to read. She sent the template to the couples and they wrote up their articles and returned them to her and all she had to do was merge them into one final newsletter and send it out. She did great!
We each respond to about 40 emails a day to answer questions about the work and forward questions to the right people to get the right answers. We do feel the usual stresses of an office, but we have great people around us that are so good and supportive... and we have time on P-day to go places and see things with those wonderful people.
Wednesday - Farewell Lunch
We had a welfare staff lunch to bid farewell to the Stay couple that have been heading up the refugee work in the Europe area and also for our intern, Kimberly, who has been writing articles about our welfare work. It was a nice luncheon and good to be together and focus on one another. We are often within feet of each other at the office, but are so focused on the work we don't take time to talk much.
We went to the "Twelve Apostles" restaurant, but we didn't see any of them in there. But it was a great restaurant and they served a delicious lunch.
We rode the U-Bahn downtown to the restaurant.
This is Daniel, who does the invoicing for projects and Gilles the area welfare manager. There were expressions of gratitude for the faithful service of the Stay couple and Kimberly.
We had a wonderful dinner and topped it off with hot apple strudel and a chocolate covered star cinnamon ice cream on whipped cream. We ate the whole thing!
As we arrived at our U-Bahn stop it started to rain and we saw a rainbow in the sky.
Elder Garrett, our zone leader. He was scraping the windows to make a snowball to throw at me.
Mom and Sister GarrettThe Dewey couple traveled with us in the van to Bad Hamburg which is about 15 minutes north of Frankfurt where we live. This is the town where the rest of the area office and distribution center for the Europe Area are located. We heard that the Christmas market there was very nice, so we're off to go see it.
We were the first to arrive. We thought it opened at 10:00 AM, but it didn't open until noon, so we went for a 2 hour walk.
We walked through town and on to a park where they have Roman baths, golf course, and play areas. I should have taken a picture of the main shopping street (mall). It is a cobblestone street with shops one each side of the road. This is one of the shops, the Bestworscht shop. Guess what they sell. I don't know if it is good or bad.
The park had a small Russian Orthodox chapel on a hill.
This is a statue of a man giving water to a wounded soldier. The Bad part of the city's name means the water of the city has health and healing properties. They fill the Roman baths with this water for people to soak in to be healthy and well.
The park had a golf club house and entry to the golf course, and was filled with beautiful big trees. Most of the trees have big round clumps of mistletoe in them.
The sidewalks in front the apartment buildings have stone-sized brass markers in front of the apartments where a Jewish family was taken from their home and sent to a camp and ultimately died.
We got back just in time for the opening of the Christmas market. We walked down this street and on into a plaza area where booths were setup.
The first thing we saw as we entered through into the plaza was this life-size wood carved nativity.
There were booths for different things people had made. We stopped and enjoyed the wares. We bought marzipan cookies in different fruit and nut flavors. They were chewy and delicious.
A little train took children for a ride around the center of the market. Our grand kids would love to drive this train!
The entry gate was beautiful cut stone depicting the glory days of the town.
When we were done with the market we found this restaurant to have a hot meal and warm up.
It felt good to be in a warm room after 4 hours in the cold.
We started our meal off with chestnut soup. It was made from chestnut mash with a little salt and pepper in a cream base, It was sooo good.
After lunch in the restaurant some found a sweet treat. Elder Garrett had a banana and chocolate crepe.
Mom loved all of the handy work and has her eye on a lighted folding paper star.
This is a reindeer made of pine boughs.
It was a fun day at the Christmas market in Bad Homburg, but it's time to say auf wiedersehen.
Sunday - Snow
We woke up to our first snow of the season, As we walked it crunched under our feet. It snowed all day, but we only got about an inch or two of snowfall. It made it Christmas time for us. We practiced Christmas music for the senior missionary choir on Thursday with the AreaPresidency Christmas message.
We love the work, the wonderful people we work with and the people and beauties of this country.
Don't forget to "Light the World".
Merry Christmas!
It was interesting to read about all the work and projects you are dealing with. I can not imagine what it must be like to have to make decisions about which projects to fund and which to either reject or ask for more information but it is very necessary. I would imagine one of the major things you look at is the sustainability. It is easy to spend money but to spend it wisely is much more difficult I am sure. Thanks for your service and continue to enjoy the holidays.
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